Mass Knife Attack in China Kills 29 People
1:34

More than ten people armed with knives rampaged through a train station in southwestern China killing dozens of people and injuring 130 others in what the official Xinhua News Agency called a planned terrorist attack.

WSJ Live

02 Mar 2014

News/World

CHINESE police have caught three suspects in a railway station attack that left 29 people dead and 143 injured, state media reported, amid fury that the US refrained from calling it a terrorist incident.

“Three suspects involved in the terrorist attack in the south-western city of Kunming had been captured,” the official news agency Xinhua said, citing the ministry of public security.

Altogether eight members of a “terrorist gang” carried out the stabbing spree late on Saturday, it said.

Four were shot dead by police at the time and a wounded woman was captured at the scene, it continued, naming their leader as Abdurehim Kurban.

China has blamed separatists from its restive far-western region of Xinjiang — home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority — for what it describes as an act of terror, with state media dubbing the incident “China’s 9/11”.

High security ... Chinese paramilitary police patrol outside the scene of the attack at the main train station in Kunming, Yunnan Province.Source: AFP

The US embassy in China said on social media that it condemned the “terrible and senseless act of violence in Kunming” and expressed condolences to those affected in what it said was a “tragedy”.

But thousands of Chinese internet users slammed the US for refusing to follow China in defining the attack as terrorism, comparing the knifings to last year’s bombing of the Boston Marathon as well as 9/11.

“Merely ‘terrible and senseless’? Only ‘violence’? Would Americans say the same thing about similar attacks on their own territory?” Ma Xiaolin, a website administrator, asked on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

“If you say that the Kunming attack is a ‘terrible and senseless act of violence’, then the 9/11 attack can be called a ‘regrettable traffic incident’,” posted Cao Fan.

Eight attackers ... Chinese police stand over a body of one of the alleged attackers. Three more suspects have since been caught, state media reported.Source: AFP

In typical mocking response, another user wrote: “I express my condolences for the setting off of fireworks and burning incident at the Boston Marathon.”

The US statement came after the UN Security Council condemned the killings and said that it “underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this terrorist attack to justice”.

It added: “Any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivation.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin also described the attack as “terror” in a message sent to China’s President Xi Jinping, state media reported on Monday.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the US placed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which China blames for unrest in the vast Xinjiang region, on its official list of international terrorist organisations.

“China’s 9/11” ... Chinese internet users are comparing the horror that unfolded here to terrorist attacks in New York and Boston.Source: AFP

But the group’s strength and links to global terrorism are murky, and some experts say China exaggerates its threat to justify tough security measures in Xinjiang.

Several Uighurs were detained in the US’ Guantanamo Bay facility, although nearly all were later released without charge.

But the US has refrained from labelling recent clashes between Uighurs and security forces in Xinjiang as terrorism, while condemning China’s treatment of the minority, prompting the foreign ministry in Beijing to repeatedly accuse Washington of a “double standard”.

Chinese social media services are subject to strict censorship, with posts and responses critical of China’s official stance regularly deleted.

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